Good afternoon and welcome to another weekly roundup of news.
We start this week’s Friday Brief with an announcement from the Engineering Industries Association. We are sorry to announce the passing of Sir Ronald Halstead CBE, MA, Hon. DSc, FRSC, President of the Engineering Industries Association (EIA) last Friday (18th June). He was 94. Please take some time to read details about his life.
This week we have a couple of government related stories. They have confirmed that it will end its trade credit re-insurance scheme at the end of June. The decision has been criticised by the Confederation of British Metalworking (CBM), which says its members have received warnings from members that their cover will be withdrawn when the scheme comes to an end. Go to the story below to read more.
Despite a delay in the easing of lockdown, the Job Retention Scheme hasn’t been extended. That means, from today, there are only 98 days of furlough remaining. Croner have created some top tips so you can better prepare for the end. Please see the story below.
We also have a quick couple of details regarding China and working in the UK from abroad.
Event-wise we have details this week of UK-RAS Robotics challenge which being hosted by Razor & the AMRC and the BFPA have invited MTA Members to join them for their seminar on Rules of Origin. Both these events are taking place next Tuesday so take a look below for further details and how to register your space(s).
BEIS this week are asking for input on the UKCA marking campaign and are asking if Members could spend a few minutes on a short survey.
The BSI standard under review this week focuses on additive manufacturing, so if you’re involved in this area take a look below to find out how you can input into this revision.
Following on from our SHEP story last week; their LinkedIn in now active at https://www.linkedin.com/company/safety-and-health-engineering-partnership-shep/. Take a look and follow them now to stay in touch for details.
Don’t forget applications for the government’s fund of £20 million for training and professional advice to help SMEs meet new customs and trade requirements when trading with the EU close on Wednesday next week (30th June). These changes include making customs declarations, new VAT rules and understanding rules of origin for tariff-free trade. Provided you meet certain eligibility criteria, HMRC’s SME Brexit Support Fund may cover up to £2000 per trader towards the costs of training and/or professional advice to help you adjust to the new rules. For more information please visit: https://www.export.org.uk/page/BrexitSupportSMEs
There are three elements to our economic news this week and a couple of “bonus” items as well. The main article covers the Bank of England’s Agents Report, the latest CBI survey results and the Flash manufacturing PMI figures; for the UK they are all signalling that the recovery in manufacturing is continuing at a healthy pace although none of them really measure levels so, from those at least, it is hard to know exactly where the market level stands. The flash PMI data also covers the Euro-zone, the USA and Japan with the latter the outlier in pointing to a deceleration in the rate of expansion of their manufacturing sector while the others continue to expand at a rapid pace.
As an extra this week we take a look at the latest UK industry forecasts from our friends at Oxford Economics (OE); although we only publish our forecasts every six months, OE compile the underlying industry output forecasts each quarter. We have summarised the latest set of forecasts and shown the comparison with those in our Spring Update; in general, this year looks to be a little stronger than the view from 3 months ago, although the forecast for aerospace has been down-graded. Finally, we have the slides and a brief summary from the ECTA Spotlight meeting last week.
That’s all for this week. Have a good weekend and we’ll be back next Friday.
